Calhouns Can(n)ons

Calhoun’s Can(n)ons, The Bay News, Tolosa Press, San Luis Obispo, CA for January 23, 09

Yes, Yes, Okay, I Resolve

I know, I know, time to make our New Year’s Resolutions. O.K., here goes:

I resolve not to text while driving. I also resolve not to read the newspaper while driving down the road either. I resolve not to snicker when I think that it’s now illegal, like somebody actually had to pass a law to stop people from peering down at a teeny-tiny little-bitty keyboard in order to find then pick out miniscule letters whilst hurtling down the road at 85 mph in order to tap out content-empty messages, like, “Hw R U? Im doon 85 dwn Hwy 101, Huh? Whazziitt? EeeeeaaaAAAHHHHKKK!”

I resolve not to go on a diet. Research shows that everybody resolves to lose weight in the New Year. Research also shows that New Year’s diets don’t work. Yes, I know, we Americans are overweight, no doubt about that. Even Oprah Winfrey has gone public to announce that she’s been “abusing herself with food,” has had it with yo-yo dieting, and has finally given up trying to achieve some unrealistic goal weight. I guess she finally found out that our bodies seem to have unique individual “set points” and one potato chip at a time they figure out a way to get back to where they want to be. So now she’s going to eat sensibly, exercise sensibly, with the goal of having a healthy body.

True, she won’t look like the fashion models and media stars on the front of magazines, airbrushed of all flaws, including a few pounds here and there – oh, wait, wasn’t that Oprah on the front of her own “O Magazine” airbrushed of all flaws and extra pounds? Well, maybe her New Year’s weight resolution will also include appearing on her own magazine with a few realistic wrinkles and bulges. If all fashion and fan mags did the same, maybe the country would finally understand that fashion models, Playboy pinups, and movie stars are all phony. First, those folks are freaks – one in a million in talent and looks, not even close to “normal” on a Bell Curve. Add in the incredible skill of the make-up artists, lighting experts, photographers and re-touchers, and what we see on the page and in the theatre is all fantasy. In real life, real human bodies come in all shapes and sizes and instead of obsessing on looking like survivors of a great famine, we’d all do ourselves a big favor if we just stopped stuffing ourselves and our kids full of sugar and fat. Coke and a smile? Coke and a case of diabetes is more like it. Better to buy a pair of walking shoes instead of a Big Mac.

I resolve to stop rolling my eyes and making growly noises when watching the news on TV. Somehow, I must try to understand that Walking While Stupid seems to be the normal, natural condition of human beings. That human history seems to be one long, endless loop of people repeatedly doing the same dumb things over and over again, then acting surprised when they get hurt or killed. The older I get the more real life keeps resembling “Jackass, The Movie,” wherein really stupid juvenile adults, who don’t seem to know any better, do predictably stupid things with predictably disastrous results, then get up and dust off their trousers and scraped elbows and say, “Ow-Ow-Ow,” while the audience laughs and laughs.

Unfortunately, in real life, really stupid people doing really stupid, disastrous things don’t get up. Ever. And nobody looking at them laying there pale and broken on the ground laughs and laughs. Instead, they cry and cry and cry. Then call the coffin-maker.

This always makes me angry and sad, which is why I roll my eyes and make growly noises. I must stop that. But if I stop growling and start crying – which surely is the only appropriate reaction to such dumb awfulness, isn’t it? -- then I shall never be able to stop weeping. And that’s a heck of a way to start a new year.